


Head Up Into the Wind

by Carmarthen



Category: The Shining Company - Rosemary Sutcliff
Genre: Canon Era, Friendship, Gen, Home, POV First Person, Post-Canon, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, Survivor Guilt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-03
Updated: 2013-06-03
Packaged: 2017-12-13 21:47:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,469
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/829232
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Carmarthen/pseuds/Carmarthen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>It is a strange thing, how the homing-hunger can come upon a man all at once, even when his new land is no longer new, and he has begun to call it home.</i>
</p><p>Prosper takes his leave of Constantinople, and of Cynan.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Head Up Into the Wind

**Author's Note:**

  * For [opalmatrix](https://archiveofourown.org/users/opalmatrix/gifts).



> Many thanks to bunn for the beta!

It is a strange thing, how the homing-hunger can come upon a man all at once, even when his new land is no longer new, and he has begun to call it home.

For me it was in a purple dusk in Constantinople one evening in summer, when the morning's dust had settled and the damp heat of midday had begun to cool. There was the unaccustomed scent of a coming storm in the air, and every so often there was a shout from the Hippodrome, where the races to celebrate the marriage of General Priscus to the Emperor’s daughter Princess Domentzia still continued. I left the races early, in no mood for the press of the crowd or the jostling of my drunken comrades in the Bodyguard.

Cynan stumbled back some time later, rather the worse for wine, with a fat purse of winnings in one hand and a girl leaning heavily on his arm, so I took myself out of the close darkness of our rooms, with my helm to burnish and dagger to sharpen, and settled onto the stoop.

Perhaps it was only the shadow of that earlier mood that came upon me; or perhaps it was the scent of mint that rose up sweet and fragrant from the street when one of our neighbors poured a tub of water into the street from her weekly hair-rinse. But I was minded suddenly, with an ache so keen and deep it pierced me to the heart, of water mint in the pool above the ford, of Luned’s quiet face and Conn’s shoulder warm against mine, and Gelert’s rough shaggy head under my palm. I had not thought of them much in years, and the longing took me with a swift fierceness that caught my breath from me.

But I had sworn my sword to the Emperor Phocas, and Priscus had been a good general to me; there would be more fighting against the Persians in the fall, and they would need every fighting man. So I bent again to my work and thought of it no more.

Yet the ache of the homing-hunger had settled as a hard knot under my breastbone, and it did not fade as the summer drew on into a wet, foggy autumn and Phocas and Priscus began to turn against each other, with the poor Princess Domentzia caught between them, as women often are between men of power.

* * *

“So,” Cynan said when I told him, leaning back against the wall and stretching his legs out in front of him. There was an exaggerated care to his motions that suggested some deep emotion--more than I expected, given that even now he hardly seemed to notice me half the time. He had never given me cause to doubt his shield-shoulder in a fight, but I think he had not quite forgiven me for bringing him away from Catraeth.

There was a mocking twist to his mouth that stung a little, but also put me in mind of the old, stallion-fierce Cynan, the Cynan I only ever saw in battle now; he did not need me as he had before. “You will return to your father’s hall and--what?”

I thought of Conn and Luned, then, of that sense of belonging I had felt with them and them alone. There had been girls for me in Constantinople, if not as many as for Cynan, but with none of them had I felt that ease that meant more than fleeting pleasure. But I did not know if Conn and Luned had saved a place in their hearts for me, or if I was forgotten, thought kindly of on occasion, but no more than an absent friend.

“I don’t know,” I told Cynan, “but there’s talk of Priscus conspiring against the Emperor, and I want no part of it; and if I am not among the brothers of the Bodyguard, then why should I not go home?”

Cynan looked at me then, still with that curious half-mocking look, and then his face softened. “No, of course; you must go back.”

“Come with me,” I said, impulsively. “The Lady Niamh--”

No sooner had the words escaped my lips than I regretted them; I knew Cynan still wore the daffodil-colored scarf tucked into his tunic when he went into battle. After nearly five years of war with the Persians, it was a sad tattered thing; and yet Cynan still treated it as tenderly as I had seen him treat anything. And I remembered the lady’s face, all eyes and dark brows, watching Cynan in the lamplight, but also Cynan telling Mynyddog _My Lord the King, do not ask me the third reason, for it is mine to me,_ and Mynyddog’s hard voice as he said _Do not come back._ I had reminded Cynan of what he could not have, even were there not that unhealed hurt in him.

He did not reply, but his face went as still as marble, the death-mask of a warrior and not the face of a living man at all; and then he stood, abruptly, went to the window, and flung open the shutters. The night had brought with it a wind off the sea that smelled of salt, like the wind that we had followed to Constantinople, and my heart ached within me, for Cynan who would never see the hills of Dyn Eidin again, nor yet his own homeland and kin.

“What is it to me,” Cynan said, in a low mutter to the salt-scented night outside, “whether Priscus rebels; what does it matter who sits on the throne, Phocas or Heraclius or Priscus himself? They will all have need of a sword.”

And I knew, although he did not say it, that Cynan could never again give his loyalty to a king as he had once; that, too, had been broken in him. “Do you want me to take a message to the Lady Niamh?” I asked, as gently as I could, although Cynan shied from gentleness like a high-spirited horse from an unexpected shadow; but still, he seemed so brittle I could not say it otherwise.

“No,” he said, in a voice so choked that I almost expected to see the glimmer of tears in his eyes when he turned back. “Or--” His hand brushed against his breast, only for a moment. “I will find her a scarf, to replace the one I have ruined.”

* * *

I left in the spring, when the storks wheeled white over the Golden City, their black wingtips like splatters of ink against the sky. Cynan had been promoted to command of a cavalry squadron; they were for Africa, to fight against the rebel Heraclius. In his shining new byrnie and scarlet cloak, helm tucked under his arm and hair thrust back from his forehead like a stallion’s crest and his lips quirked into a lazy smile, he seemed very nearly the old Cynan; perhaps in battle he would find his purpose again. Some men I had known in Constantinople, men with such soul-wounds, could only find peace in the fight, and it seemed to me that Cynan might be one of them. My heart ached for him, but I knew I could no more heal him than could the herbs of Mynyddog’s Queen or the gentle touches of the Princess Niamh.

In my saddlebag was a silk scarf from the east, a saffron deeper than the daffodil yellow of the tattered scarf that showed a little at the neck of Cynan’s byrnie; for Conn there was a fine dagger of Damascene steel, and for Luned a length of fabric embroidered with gryphons. I did not let myself imagine that I would not see them again.

Cynan clasped my arm for a long moment, but it was the clasp of a warrior, and not a drowning man clutching for land. And then he said, carelessly, “I forgive you for bringing me away from Catraeth,” as if it meant nothing, and then, “The sun and the moon on your path, Prosper son of Gerontius.” And then he settled his helm onto his head and swung himself into the saddle, with that ease of oneness with his horse that I only ever saw in the three stallion sons of Clydno, and with the old salute of the Bodyguard, he cantered up the street to join Basilius and Felix. He would have friends to guard his shoulder, at least. 

The feeling that seized me as I turned my face westward was not quite lightness of spirit; I knew I would not see Cynan again. But his life was not mine to live, and the wind that blew from the west seemed to carry with it the green scent of the valley of Nant Ffrancon. I was going home.

**Author's Note:**

> In 606 or 607, Priscus, commander of the imperial bodyguard, married Emperor Phocas' daughter Domentzia. Things went rapidly sour between the two men, and around 608, Priscus was said (perhaps unfairly) to be conspiring with the Exarch of Africa, Heraclius the Elder. At any rate, he abandoned Phocas when the revolt was successful.
> 
> This story is set c. 607-608.


End file.
